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In the years before Stonewall, jill johnston — always lowercase — was a phenomenon. A lean, long-haired, jeans-clad 40-something butch lesbian who exuded a raw sexuality everywhere she went, johnston wrote about her lesbian feminist exploits on the pages of the renowned New York weekly, the Village Voice. Her lower case, stream-of-consciousness, anti-patriarchal sedition schooled budding teen lesbians and married ladies yearning to be lesbians, closeted corporate lesbians and in-your-face Daughters of Bilitis.

A weekend tweet by Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin warning his congregants not to support or attend LGBTQ Pride Month events prompted a national outcry and protests June 2 in this city with a deep, if divided, Catholic tradition.

In the years before Stonewall and Pride, LGBT activism was criminalized and subversive. In the 1950s, Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI), leader of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, was looking for Communists.

The Trump Administration has announced that it is planning to roll back an important regulation in the Health Care Rights Law (HCRL), the critical part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that protects transgender people from discrimination in health care and insurance coverage.

Sr. Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun, says she disagrees with three high-ranking Catholic leaders who recently sent a letter to Congress in opposition to the Equality Act. The bill would add gender identity and sexual orientation to existing federal nondiscrimination laws. It passed the House of Representatives in a 236 - 173 vote last week but faces an uphill battle in the Senate.

So ended the four-hour debate on the House floor on the most important civil rights legislation since the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who had chaired the debate called the vote for HR5, also known as the Equality Act.

In a new attack on the transgender community, the Trump administration has announced a plan to deny trans people equal access to the homeless shelter system. The plan would put vulnerable transpersons experiencing violence and/or homelessness under continued threat.